MIKE RIPS PUSHY FOES IN 'CUSHY' UNION POSTS

DAVID SEIFMAN
City Hall Bureau Chief

-It's getting personal between Mayor
Bloomberg and the leaders of the police and firefighter unions.

The mayor charged yesterday that the contract stalemate
between the city and cops and firefighters is due, in part, to
the "cushy jobs" held by police-union president Patrick
Lynch and fire-union chief Steve Cassidy.

"They get paid by the Police Department and
paid by the union, and they just don't want to lose 'em, and that's
what you see here," the mayor said from Athens during his
weekly WABC radio show. "They lead from the back of the pack,
not the front."

Leaders of municipal unions receive dual paychecks,
one from the city and another from the union they run.

Aides said Lynch and Cassidy each earn slightly
more than $100,000, modest by the standards of major unions. The
aides stressed that the union portions of their salaries don't
count toward their pensions.

But administration sources added, "We know
they have expense accounts."

Cassidy told The Post the mayor was trying to divert
attention from an "insulting" wage offer of 4.17 percent
over three years.

"The mayor is making this a personal attack
because he doesn't want to debate the real issue," said Cassidy.

The fire-union boss also said his job was far from
cushy.

"It's just an outright false allegation,"
Cassidy declared.

Lynch described Bloomberg as a "billionaire
mayor who doesn't understand what a working person goes through
who has to work a full day without getting a fair day's pay."

Cops and firefighters have been working without
contracts for more than two years.

The ratcheted-up rhetoric came after the unions
ran newspaper ads of Bloomberg as Pinocchio with an elongated
nose, telling fibs about the city's offers at the negotiating
table.

Some labor insiders say the two sides are in a bind
because the city extracted deep concessions from civilian unions
that the uniformed-union leaders would have a hard time selling
to their members.

Among other facts, District Council 37, the largest
municipal union, accepted a lower pay scale for new employees
in its ranks.

The mayor indicated he's not about to budge from
his demand for productivity gains from every union seeking more
than the basic contract package.

A "change to some work rules" would allow
him to boost police and firefighter salaries up to 8 percent "very
quickly," said Bloomberg.

He also warned that outside pressure - such as the
kind that won a 14.5 percent hike over four years for Boston cops
- wouldn't work here.

"Boston is a different story," Bloomberg
said. "I think it was taken out of the mayor's hands and
imposed on them. In New York, this is up to the city. Nor will
we ever get pressure from the state government or the federal
government.

"This is an issue for New York City's citizens.
They hire the mayor to negotiate for them. There isn't a third
party here."